The Goodnight Moon House - New York, NY
Posted by: 
chrissyml
N 40° 44.070 W 074° 00.408
18T E 583864 N 4509759
This pretty little house was once on the Upper East Side.
Waymark Code: WM1AWD9
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 10/17/2024
Views: 0
From the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation:
"121 Charles Street dates from the late 18th/early 19th century, with some sources dating its construction to 1810. Saw marks found on the wood indicate that it was built after the introduction of sawmills, dating the house to the early 19th century at the earliest. For its first one hundred or so years it was farmhouse on the Upper East Side. It then served as a restaurant for a short time, and in 1946, Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon, rented the house (the house is sometimes referred to as the “Goodnight Moon House”). In 1960, Sven and Ingrid Bernhard rented the farmhouse and in 1966 the Bernhards gain ownership of it.
The property and the house originally belonged to the Archdiocese of New York, who in 1965 were planning to demolish it and surrounding properties (then known as Cobble Court for the cobblestones that lined this and adjoining property) for the new planned Mary Manning Walsh Home for the Aged. When the Bernhards gained ownership of the property, they were given six months to move it from its York Avenue location. William Shopsin, a young architect interested in preserving historic buildings, was hired to find a new site that would preserve the house’s charm. He found the Charles and Greenwich Street lot on February 3rd (the first of two extensions the Bernhards received to move the house). The lot’s unusual shape was also able to accommodate the 26-foot-wide house, which would have trouble fitting on the standard 25-foot-wide Manhattan lot.
Before moving, Shopsin needed permission from numerous city agencies, including the Department of Buildings (DOB), which had no record of the building due to its age (its construction predated DOB’s formation in 1866). To further complicate matters, wooden houses had been outlawed in Manhattan; so while the house was grandfathered on the York Avenue site, it would not meet contemporary code requirements in another location. When the story caught the interest of Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton and Mayor John Lindsay, their influence helped get the approvals needed to move the house.
On March 5, 1967, the house was finally moved from York Avenue to Charles Street, where it has remained ever since."
source: (
visit link)
More information about the actual day of relocation (including photos!) can be found here: (
visit link)